TEXT ON SCREEN: IT’S THE OLYMPICS OF ROBOTICS

LAST SUMMER, A TEAM OF M.I.T. STUDENTS PREPARED TO COMPETE

STUDENT 1: I was here til midnight last night.

STUDENT 2: No, there’s definitely pressure.

STUDENT 3: I can’t sleep.

TEXT ON SCREEN: THEY’D SPENT MORE THAN TWO YEARS PROGRAMMING THIS ROBOT TO NAVIGATE AN OBSTACLE COURSE

ANNOUNCER: Start your robots!

TEXT ON SCREEN: THE IDEA WAS TO SEE IF ROBOTS COULD RESPOND TO A NUCLEAR DISASTER

STUDENT 4: Hit pause.

STUDENT 5: Everybody relax.

STUDENT 1: If the robot falls over and hits the ground, that’s it for us.

STUDENT 2: Yeah, if things go badly they could go very badly.

AUDIENCE: Oh, no…

TEXT ON SCREEN: THE TEAM HAD FORGOTTEN TO DISENGAGE THE ROBOT’S CAR DRIVING MECHANISM.

STUDENT 6: It was just a user error, but there’s a hundred processes running up a hundred things on the robot, just forgot to turn that one off. The right arm basically took the brunt of the fall, and it sheared all the gears off the gearbox inside the right arm.

TEXT ON SCREEN: THEIR ONLY OPTION WAS TO DO SOMETHING THEY HADN’T DONE BEFORE.

STUDENT 7: So, left handed, how do you feel?

STUDENT 8: I don’t know if anybody will appreciate it, but it might have been the most dramatic performance of the day, maybe even of the competition.

STUDENT 9: One more stair and we’re home.

STUDENT 10: Come on….wait for it…Yes!

TEXT ON SCREEN: M.I.T. WENT ON TO PLACE 6TH OUT OF 25 TEAMS.

STUDENT 11: There’s clearly a huge distance for robots to go, and I think that we’re going to keep closing that gap between what we imagined that robots could do, and-and what they can do now.

(END)